Only the mental need apply

So, that's why my eldest brother and I are going to check out a Vel Satis

3.0 dCI Auto tomorrow. Not for me - hopefully, obviously :-)

Pros - it's not German. Cons - it's French, 26 grand in depreciation so far, the ugly stick.

On balance, I quite like them :-)

Reply to
Bob Sherunckle
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They're a bit mad in the styling department, but they never really did it for me.

On the other hand however, I saw another Avantime today.

I want it.

Reply to
Douglas Payne

Remember what was said when I considered one.

Reply to
Elder

Douglas Payne gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

I was _conclusively_ cured of wanting a VanTime by talking to an owner. He loved it dearly, but...

His is a v6 petrol. The v6s have a rep for eating the coils (on top of the plugs) To change them on the rear bank requires the exhaust manifold dropping, to access the plugs from underneath.

Reply to
Adrian

I don't remember exactly, but was it that French mega-luxury vans are not a cheap/reliable/sensible way of getting to work?

None of these is an issue for me at the moment. It doesn't matter though, I'm still not daft enough to buy one.

Reply to
Douglas Payne

Oohh, that's gotta hurt.

The worst levels of unserviceability I have ever encountered were with a Fiat Marea 2.0.

Burst hose to the thermostat, had to remove all of the induction system right back to the cylinder head to get it out. Timing belt, not quite the engine out job it used to be, but still a full day's work with zero clearance anywhere.

Reply to
Bob Sherunckle

Something like that, and even the french cars lovers disliked them, then there was the depreciation element mentioned and the fact I wouldn't be able to sell it on.

Reply to
Elder

Jaguar V12. It required the aircon dismantling in order to change one of the spark plugs. Therefore even main dealers didn't change that spark plug and it was common to discover that the plug was in a poor state at

60k miles. I even saw one V12 XJS where the plug had been fired through the bonnet leaving what looked like large bullet hole because the plug thread had corroded into nothingness.
Reply to
Steve Firth

Heh, used to take me around 4 hours to do all the plugs on my XJS V12. I'm not doing any more of 'em..

The Renault 4 Gordini Turbo we built needed the exhaust manifold removing to change the oil filter..

Reply to
Pete M

Hmmm. Are you sure? Assuming it's the same basic engine as the Mk1 Vee then that maybe a little bit of confusion - as with the Mk1 you have to remove the inlet plenum to access 3 of the coils/plugs - takes about 15 mins to change all 6 coils, plenum is only 4 or 6 bolts to remove.

The Vee's have the exact same rep for eating the exact same Bosch coils. However, they can be replaced with a few other brands, including Sagem ones available from Peugeot dealers for use with the 406 V6 etc for £20 a piece. Once you've swapped them out for another brand that seems to cure it - I can't remember what the other brand is, but mine had 6 Sagems on it an I had no problems.

Reply to
DanB

To change the cambelt, or the clutch, on the Clio V6, you have to remove the engine from underneath, which basically means dropping the whole sub frame down, along with all the suspension/brakes blah blah blah. About 12-15 hours of work if you wanna do the belt and the clutch. If you've done it before. 3 days in a dealer is not uncommon.

Reply to
DanB

"DanB" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Slight drawback. The rear bank is somewhere below the dashboard, about

3ft behind the base of the windscreen...

An octopus might be able to get in from above, but no human...

Reply to
Adrian

Was there car finance involved? The idea is nice, but if thats what I was buying a car for, there's no way I'd buy an Avantime with my own money, let alone someone else's.

If I was as hard up as you sometimes seem to be, I'd be looking to a crack habit rather than an Avantime. It would work out cheaper and the ending would be happier.

(c:

Reply to
Douglas Payne

Ah gotcha. That's a very silly way of doing it isn't it? They'd be easy to do on my brothers 406 Coupe as well, they're just like, there (ish) heh.

Reply to
DanB

Nope, it was when I was looking at the upper end of the bangernomics, lot of car for relatively little money because someone else had suffered the depreciation. A couple of grand for a less than 10 year old car with full history.

Reply to
Elder

Well I still can't find any Avantimes for a couple of grand.

You'd presumably be looking for an Auto one?

Don't worry, it's still a bad idea.

Reply to
Douglas Payne

Sort of in the "couple of grand" bracket

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Reply to
Elder

Heheh, yeah, I'm tempted to go and sniff round it. It's not too far from here.

Its not auto and I'd be very surprised indeed if you could persuade it to do appreciably more MPGs than the Saab, but I'll sell it to you for £5k. Delivered.

(c:

Reply to
Douglas Payne

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